Even the Star Trek films stopped coming up with new gadgets — they don’t have futuristic communicators in the new films, they have regular cellphones. Sci-fi remakes are inherently regressive — we’re dredging up the past to teach us about the future, which happens to be right now.

I’ve actually been thinking a lot recently about how reboots have been a sign of cultural stagnation. Part of the wonder and joy of sci-fi, and Star Trek in particular, is the hope it gives people for the future. It doesn’t just entail wide-eyed optimism, it entails imagination. I think that’s something that the genre really seems to be struggling with right now.